Jessica Ruttenber

speaker

323 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Jul 2026 last heard 30 Jul

Jessica Ruttenber’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 1.

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Truth in the Barrel with Amy McGrath · Women With More Military Experience Than Pete Hegseth | Devil's Cut · 30 Jul 2026 podcast

I did.

I served in the Air Force for a little over 20 years.

My last job was in the Pentagon.

I had multiple jobs, but I primarily was an Air Force pilot.

Most of my flight time is in the KC-135.

I had over 3,000 hours in that as an instructor evaluator pilot.

I served countless deployments to OIF.

OEF, and other theaters around the world.

And at the end of my career, I worked in the Pentagon, and I worked on the National Defense Authorization Act.

I coordinate with Congress to develop the budget for what some people call the POM, the five-year budget that we talk about.

And at the end of my career, I found myself in an interesting space where I could help others serve to the fullest potential.

And I started volunteering on stuff such as the Women's Initiative Team and removing barriers so that we could serve to our fullest potential.

For me, that was like flying pregnant.

I flew through three pregnancies and I was able to influence and change some policy within the Air Force, the Department of Defense, and ultimately had to go to Congress and change some laws.

So that's me in a nutshell.

I think you nailed it on the head there.

I do think there's one part that could fill in between, and that is the ability to become a parent during that time.

So I felt like our hybrid generation between coming into the academy to what we had today is it's fine as long as you don't interrupt your service by having children.

So in the 70s, we disqualified individuals.

We said,

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